Some news from Iraq on The Big Story

Dan Senor, who went straight from his position at the Carlysle Group to being an advisor to L. Paul Bremer, former administrator of the Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority, was the guest today 6/18/07 on The Big Story to discuss a helicopter attack in Iraq that killed 4 men identified as Al Qaeda terrorists.

Contrary to both John Gibson's and Bill O'Reilly's stated positions, Senor thinks "it's important for people to see what's going" on in Iraq - now that the surge is taking effect. (Remember, he tells Gibson, the surge was not fully implemented until a week or two ago.)

DoD footage was shown during the segment, reportedly of Al Qaeda terrorists running from and shooting at the American helicopter, and Gibson said this should be the end of the argument that Al Qaeda isn't in iraq. Comment: Straw-man sighting! No-one denies that Al Qaeda has moved into Iraq since the US invasion. Even if anyone did, this footage proves no such thing - all we can make out are humans. But he makes his talking points anyway.

Senor supported General Petraeus' stance on Fox News Sunday, that the administration's stated date of September for evaluating the surge's success (or failure) was ill-advised, and suggests that they'll be able to look at a "snapshot" at that time, not a final report card.

Asked if we are aligning ourselves with the Sunni or the Sh'ia in Iraq, Senor responded that we are aligning ourselves with the Shi'ites. (Comment: but arming Sunnis.) It's interesting, he said that in Diyala Province where some Sunni insurgents and Al Qaeda fighters are fighting, we're seeing a split between Sunni insurgents, sort of Iraqi nationalists, and Al Qaeda, and that group of Sunni nationalists that we're actually working with.

Confused?

What's interesting to me is that less than a week after FOX took a public drubbing over their no-news is good-news format, John Gibson comes around with an Iraq segment. He did manage to "advance the story," as O'Reilly puts it, that September is too soon to tell and this war will continue to be drawn out with promises of progress.